Currently, I don’t think Ballooners can skip over a settlement during normal movement, but it could be an easy to implement solution.

To answer Penny’s question, I had expected the new ship to be created on a nearby tile reachable by Ballooner. I suppose I did wonder what would happen, but I didn’t think I’d lose the Buccaneers.

Perhaps the simplest solution could be to alter the map? The 2-player map is the only one with any land-locked grasslands, isn’t it? Might not be worth the effort to change the code for one weird case?

Yes, they can travel over your own settlements, but will still attack enemy settlements if ordered towards them.

We could do a once off build on top of the settlement, so you can get the Buccaneers out. It might be a bit confusing if you can’t build ships in there after that. You could build a ship on top of the settlement, but not move it off unless you have a Ballooner on board. I think I’d prefer that as a rule, rather than a once off exception.

What about allowing the option to hire buccaneers at Settlements, or at least only allow Ballooners to be hired at Settlements? That way you can have a ballooner sitting there ready for you to build a ship and fly off to wage war on the open seas.

I was thinking a one-off for each settlement that is in that situation. If there’s a Ballooner there, it will create a flying ship above the settlement. I think it’s too much of a weird/specific exception though.